


At His Expense

by g_girl143



Series: #wickedlywonderfulweekofreylo [1]
Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015), Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, BenRey - Freeform, Domestic Fluff, F/M, Fluff, Modern Era, Prompt Fic, ReyBen, Reylo - Freeform, Romantic Fluff, Slice of Life, Snow, Snowshoes, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Tumblr Prompt, wickedlywonderfulweekofreylo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-07
Updated: 2016-06-07
Packaged: 2018-07-12 19:21:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,752
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7119277
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/g_girl143/pseuds/g_girl143
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Several feet of snow and an incessant demand. What's a man to do?</p><p>Part of #wickedlywonderfulweekofreylo fic prompt day 1: Snowshoes</p>
            </blockquote>





	At His Expense

**Author's Note:**

> Slice of life, Modern AU with callbacks to TFA. General fluff. Fluff with no plot. LOL
> 
> Pretty much turned out to be so sweet I could get diabetes from this haha but I have my fluffy hat on so here's some Reylo fluff.
> 
> Part of the #wickedlywonderfulweekofreylo fic challenge in tumblr

He couldn’t believe he had to do this.

It wasn’t entirely unexpected, for sure. In fact, it was inevitable. But what he didn’t count on, was having to do this in the middle of the night, and just after a snow storm no less.

Ben’s fingers tightened around the curtain, his gaze still trained outside where several feet of snow piled up on the suburban streets of D’Qar City. It would take too much time and effort to shovel the snow off the walkway and the snowplowers won’t be coming in until morning to clear the roads.

He cursed under his breath and walked towards the door, grabbing his black parka, beanie, and gloves from the hooks. Not much time for a plan when the demand was urgent, he thought with disdain.

 _“Well, you signed up for this,”_ he reminded himself as he zipped himself up and reached for the door knob, only to end up cursing some more as powdery snow came pouring in, covering his black boots with a stark contrast of color.

He held his head up and closed his eyes. Calm, calm, must stay calm. Couldn’t let anyone know how close he was to throwing a full on temper tantrum. Not tonight.

Once he had evened his breath, he lowered his head and looked out on the streets. There has got to be around two, three feet of snow out there, which normally wouldn’t be a problem for him. Not with his height. But time was of the essence. The order must be fulfilled. Plus, he was too damned tired to be wading and struggling around through that white mess.

He looked around the living room, for what, he wasn’t entirely sure, until his gaze landed on a framed photo on the mantelpiece. It was taken a year ago, during one of his final days in Starkiller Base Ski Resort where he used to work as a ski instructor. There had been a lot of bad memories there, but also a few great ones...

_“We’re not done yet.”_

_“You’re a monster!” she yelled, her breaths coming out in white puffs, cheeks red from the effort of making her way uphill and towards his side._

_“Doesn’t change the fact that you need a teacher,” he reminded her, holding out his hand to help her up her last steps. Stubborn as she was, she didn’t take it._

_“Yeah, but not a drill instructor!” she retorted and pulled up her ski goggles, her hazel eyes blazing. “The least you could do is let me catch my breath before another round.”_

_He smirked. “Yeah, well, you might not have been so winded if you exercised more and laid off the carbs once in a while.”_

_He saw it coming. In the few years since he had taken over teaching her how to ski after his uncle’s retirement following an arm injury, he’d known her to have this quick temper, not quite unlike his own. And so it was no surprise when she suddenly flicked up her ski pole like a staff and hit his shoulder with it. What he didn’t expect however was to lose his footing and end up tumbling down the slope, skis and ski poles flying, the world interchanging from blue skies to white snow until he slid down on his back, eyes staring upwards in shock._

_The sounds of skis against snow and a fit of giggles rang through his ears until he was met with the vision of her face over him, lips parted in laughter, brown hair flecked with snowflakes. “Oh my God, you should’ve seen...that was so funny! Oh my God!”_

_“I could kill you,” he growled._

_She laughed some more. “No, you won’t.”_

_His heart was still pounding something awful. If it was from the fall or from her laughter, he wasn’t sure. “I SHOULD kill you!”_

_She stopped laughing then, lips still set in a smile, hazel eyes twinkling in a way that told him she was about to do something devious._

_Before he could scramble up to his feet, she pulled him up by the lapel of his parka and pressed her lips to his._

_“No.” She grinned against his mouth. “You won’t.”_

He blinked away his musings and focused on the present. Ah, now there’s an idea, he thought, and rushed to the storage closet under the stairs. After a few minutes of rummaging through some junk, he got what he needed: a pair of old, traditional snowshoes he had brought back with him from Starkiller Base as a souvenir. He hadn’t used them for a long time. Hadn’t even thought of the possibility that he would be needing them ever since moving to D’Qar City, with its supposedly warmer climate, and yet here he was, faced with freezing temperatures and several feet of snow. Global Warming was a bitch called irony.

It took him a few more moments before he was able to re-orient himself with putting on the snowshoes, and made a mental note to purchase a modern pair one of these days.

After securing the knots around his boots, he headed out of the house, kicking up the snow until he found his footing. It was awkward having to balance himself on these things after such a long time of not needing to do it. Maybe he should have grabbed those snow walking sticks from the closet too. Damn.

A bit too late to go back now, he thought, throwing a glance at the tracks he had made from the house. A considerable distance all things considering, given that even with the snowshoes on, he was still finding himself sinking in to the snow more than he would have liked.

He sighed and trudged towards his destination. It wasn’t that far, actually, but with all this snow, it felt like he had been walking forever before he finally arrived in front of Unkar’s convenience store.

He frowned when he saw that no one had bothered to shovel a path for customers. Then again, Unkar’s wasn’t exactly known for its service, and it was further evidenced by the fact that he could see Teedo, the store clerk, napping away in front of the register.

He let out a frustrated breath. Of all the 24-hour convenience stores, why did Unkar’s have to be the only one that had what he needed?

Ben cleared a path for himself with his shoes before entering the store loud enough to wake Teedo, who woke up with a start and a flurry of curses, stopping only when he saw Ben glaring at him.

It didn’t stop the smaller man from being less than civil though. “Watcha want?”

“Some Jakku mint bread and some Jakku nutri-portions,” Ben muttered his reply, eyes darting towards the store’s baked goods section. He found it before Teedo could point it out, and made his way towards it, his snowshoes making wet, clapping noises against the floor and eliciting another flurry of muttered curses from Teedo about having to mop up later.

After making sure the items were nowhere near its expiration dates, he paid for them at the counter and exited as quickly as he could. It was starting to snow heavily again, and he could feel the wind picking up.

He broke out into a run...well, more of an awkward waddle, and he thanked the stars no one was out there to see how silly he looked flopping around on snowshoes with his arms wrapped around a brown paper bag.

One more turn, one more turn, he thought. He was almost home. He could see the house, the tracks he’d made earlier and...

...saw white, snowy ground rushing up to meet him followed by instant darkness. He stilled, his mind not exactly processing what had happened until his lungs screamed for air and he lifted his head up with a gasp.

_He blinked and stared back at her, his lips still warm from hers. He opened his mouth to speak, but there were no words._

_“Wow,” she mused, her dimples deepening. “If I’d known that was how to shut you up, I’d have done that a long time ago.” She tilted her head then, eyes still twinkling with mischief. “You still wanna kill me?”_

_“You kissed me,” he finally muttered._

_“Yes, I did.”_

_“But...why?”_

_“Figure it out, genius.” Face still bright from her smile, she stood up and held out her hand. “Now, get your ass off the ground and ski with me.”_

He sputtered and looked around. There didn’t seem to be anyone for miles but he could still feel his face grow warm from embarrassment. If she saw him fall flat on his face the way he just did, she’d be laughing her ass off at his expense.

He grabbed the paper bag and rose to his feet, muttering curses every step of the way until he finally got back inside the house and slammed the door behind him.

“Ben?”

“I’m coming,” he called out, a little more gruffly than he had intended as he shed off his winter clothes and stepped out of his boots. A glance at the clock told him he had barely been out for fifteen minutes but it felt almost like a lifetime.

He marched up the stairs, unable to stop his irritation from showing with each of his heavy steps until he reached the bedroom and found Rey, sitting up on the bed and looking up at him with that wide smile of hers that made her cheeks dimple.

He felt his face soften. Damn her, and her smile and her dimples.

He sighed and handed her the paper bag. “Here.”

“Thanks!” She took the bag and dug into the contents, hazel eyes lighting up as she took out the mint bread and the nutri-portions. “Ah, just what I needed!”

He slipped in under the covers and watched her open the package and gleefully savor bite after bite. He could complain to her. Tell her about all the trouble it took just to get her these damned things in the middle of a goddamn snowy night, but instead, he chose to snuggle up beside her and put a hand over her protruding belly.

The corners of his lips curled up when he felt a kick. And that was all it took for all his irritation to fade away into contentment.

“Ben?”

“Yeah?”

“What was it like, eating snow like that?”

She saw. Dammit, she saw.

“Shut up.”

**Author's Note:**

> Just a lil call out inspired from my dad's experiences back when my mom was pregnant with me and my brother (I'm a fraternal twin). My dad's a complainer lol but thought waking up in the middle of the night just to get mama her weird ass cravings was worth it. Incidentally, today's my dad's birthday too so yey.


End file.
